


Academy Daze

by DameOfNoDelicacy



Category: Bleach
Genre: (i hope...?), Fluff, Gen, M/M, What am I doing, and cute, and... um... weed?, eh, oh well, pretty cheesy too i admit, pure fluff, they're young, young shunsui, young ukitake
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-21
Updated: 2016-04-21
Packaged: 2018-06-03 15:12:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6615412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DameOfNoDelicacy/pseuds/DameOfNoDelicacy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Young Shunsui shows young Jūshirō how to celebrate 4/20. Fluff ensues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Academy Daze

**Author's Note:**

> A few folks in the Bleach Suggestions community on tumblr made clever posts about this important and illustrious holiday. (Side note: if you have a tumblr, track the "Bleach Suggestions" tag! I freakin' love these people.) I felt inspired. Then this happened. I... kinda don’t hate it :)
> 
> Also - partly, posted this because I feel pretty lame about not having posted a new chapter to "Irooni" yet this week. (Working on it, by the way - it's just taking a bit longer than I anticipated! It'll be up soon, I promise!) In the mean time... enjoy the fluff?

Shunsui, as per usual, is smiling like an idiot. “You don’t smoke it like a regular pipe,” he’s saying to Jūshirō. “You gotta hold your breath for, like, five seconds before you breathe out again. So it gets into your system. Make sense?”

Jūshirō stares flatly at his friend. “And just how many pipes,” he asks pointedly, “do you think I’ve smoked in my life?”

“Uh.”

“That would be _none_.”

“Uh. Yeah, I… I was gonna go with _none_ …”

“Shunsui – ”

“Yeah?”

“You’ve had a lot of _really_ horrible ideas –”

“Yeah…?”

“But _this_ might just be the single worst idea you’ve ever had.”

“Come _on_ , Jū!” Shunsui says. He fixes his stubbly face into a perfect picture of someone praying a little too hard for sympathy. “Here – I’ll go first. How’s that?”

“I – I _still_ don’t – ”

But before Jūshirō can say another word, Shunsui’s bringing the pipe to his lips, and he’s taking this long, elegant, eyes-closed drag, and he’s making it look like the easiest, most relaxing thing in the world. Not long after, he exhales, sending a stream of black smoke spiraling into the springtime sky. He opens his eyes and waggles his dark brows up and down. “You _sure_ you don’t wanna try it?” he says.

“Well…”

“It’s _awful_ nice, y’know…” And Shunsui sticks out the pipe in his hand and waves it back and forth, slowly, in front of Jūshirō’s face.

Jūshirō looks at the pipe.

Jūshirō looks at Shunsui.

Jūshirō looks back at the pipe.

He licks his lips – he’s nervous – but he says:

“All right. I… I’ll do it!”

“Aww, yeah! Way to be, man!” Shunsui scoots a little closer to Jūshirō and brings the pipe close to Jūshirō’s mouth. “Here,” he says, “I’ll light it for ya – here ya go – ”

“S-say – Shunsui?”

“Uh-huh?”

“Um.” Jūshirō looks away. Even though he and Shunsui have been friends for a good two years now, he still gets embarrassed sometimes. “It’ll probably make me start coughing, you know.”

“Hey.” Shunsui waits – waits until Jūshirō meets his eyes. When Jūshirō does, he sees that they’re warm, friendly, steady. Shunsui smiles. “No worries, man,” he says. “Nothin’ we haven’t handled together before.”

After a second, Jūshirō smiles back.

“I _still_ think this is a terrible idea….”

“Well…” Shunsui strikes a match. “Only one way to find out, right?”

 

***

 

Turns out, it wasn’t a terrible idea at all.

Jūshirō coughs just a little after his first pull on the pipe, but much to his and Shunsui’s delight, that’s the end of it. They pass the pipe back and forth until they smoke all of the funny-smelling stuff away – and before long, the lines of Jūshirō’s world start to go all squiggly, and his fingertips start to tingle, and his reiatsu thrums with a strange, languid, swirly-type rhythm that he’s never experienced before.

All afternoon, Shunsui and Jūshirō lay side-by-side in the long grass, sometimes clutching their sides in relentless fits of giggles over nothing (once, Shunsui says the word “wasabi” really, _really_ slowly, and Jūshirō can’t stop laughing for a full five minutes), and sometimes staring upwards and picking out shapes in the slow-moving clouds.

“I like this,” Jūshirō tells Shunsui as he watches the sun start to dip behind a distant hill.

“Knew ya would.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah…”

“ _Yeah.._.”

And that’s all they can say.

That’s all they _need_ to say, seems like.

Shunsui’s hand brushes up against Jūshirō’s in the grass, and Jūshirō giggles again, like the little boy he knows he’ll always be at heart. He twines his fingers into Shunsui’s, tracing the familiar callouses on his friend’s zanjutsu-hardened palm.

“I like this,” Jūshirō says again.

“Yeah, I – I mean, you _did_ just say that, like, a second ago, man – ”

“I _like_ this,” says Jūshirō for a third time. “And –”

“Uh-huh?”

“And – I like you.”

Shunsui turns his head sideways, and a little giggle slips out of his mouth, too. “I _know_ that,” he says softly. “I _know_ that, Jū-chan.”

“I know you know it.” Jūshirō grins, and he squeezes Shunsui’s hand tight. “Just… wanted to say it again. Now... here. Now… like this. Y’know?”

 “Heh. S’all right by me, man.” Shunsui squeezes Jūshirō’s hand right back. “I like you, too.”

“I know.”

“I know you know.”

“I _know_ you know I –”

“Oh, _gods_ , don’t do that, Jū-chan –”

“I _know_ you know I _know_ you –”

“You’re gonna make my _brain_ hurt!”

“Ha-ha-ha! We wouldn’t want _that,_ now, would we?”

“Why, you – that’s it –!”

Shunsui tackles Jūshirō, pins his wrists to the ground – Jūshirō’s laughing – Shunsui’s laughing, too – they’re both laughing, and laughing, and _laughing –_ tossing and tumbling, limbs all a-flurry – they’re both giddy and grinning, high on life, high on love – high as kites on a springtime afternoon –

And then, dreamy, glazed eyes, one pair shining like the finest chrome and one pair gleaming like the finest emeralds, stop, meet, lock –

And they stare –

And –

“Shunsui?”

“Yo.”

“Hey – hey, Shunsui?’

“Uh-huh?”

“…Shunsui?”

“…uh- _huh?”_

“I just… wanted to say…”

“…yeah?”

“ _Thank_ you,” Jūshirō says. “Never woulda done this without you, y’know.”

“I know.”

“I _know_ you –”

“Don’t you start –”

Again, Jūshirō giggles. “Okay,” he says. “And, hey… Shunsui?”

“… _yeah?”_

“I… just wanted to say…”

He pauses. It’s funny – he’s so full to bursting with emotion that he can’t get the words out. That’s never happened to him before.

“Yeah? What’s up, Jū-chan?”

Jūshirō beams.

“Shunsui,” he says, “I’m _so happy_ we’re friends.”


End file.
